To our bloggers and blog readers, thanks for your wonderful and insightful comments, and for keeping us on our toes!

Happy holidays to all!

Rich Norris"

Addendum:

I'd also like to share this great data sheet from JimmyB, who has meticulously kept a record of the names of constructors and the time it took him to solve each puzzle (Monday to Saturday) since March 23, 2009 when most of the papers were switched to LA Times crossword.

You can click either the LAT 2010 & LAT All button at the bottom of the page to read his complete list. Thanks for sharing, Jim!

Theme: No SAINTS (STs) Allowed: The abbreviation for Saint (ST) is removed from the first word of a common two-word phrase to reveal a new and humorous two-word phrase.

17A. Conger's protection?: EEL HELMET. STEEL HELMET. Cute pun, but I did not remember this species of eels so it did not fall quickly.

26A. Tracker of bauxite thieves?: ORE DETECTIVE. STORE DETECTIVE. This is where I got going, as Bauxite is the ore from which aluminum is extracted.

43A. Roadie, after a gig?: AMP COLLECTOR. STAMP COLLECTOR. A nice reminder of the days riding on a tour bus, watching the roadies load and unload from city to city.

58A. Diamond oration?: UMP SPEECH. STUMP SPEECH. The term is from the literal delivery of political speeches while standing on a sawed off tree to allow the candidate to be seen and heard.

The unifier: 41D. Hardly a model of perfection, and a hint to how this puzzle's theme puns are derived : NO SAINT.

Lemonade here, and I found the theme easily, without the unifier, and all the answers are nice symmetrical 9 12 12 9 with the unifier adding 7 more letters. I liked each of the puns, with AMP COLLECTOR my favorite; overall this was the hardest puzzle for me that I have blogged. It is however a nice honor to prepare the final blog of 2010.

Across:

1. Blows: BOPS. Man was this corner a struggle for me; I know a BOP where you strike someone is a BLOW, but BLOW was so many meanings. Down Lois and Carol. This crossing with BEECH did not help.

5. Open some: AJAR. Whew, an easy one.

9. "The Remains of the Day" author __ Ishiguro: KAZUO. Followed by more difficulty, for while I recalled the wonderful movie version starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, I did not have any memory of this transplanted Japanese AUTHOR .

19. Figured (out), slangily: DOPED. Yes, we all doped out this answer, though wouldn’t slang been enough?

20. __-Magnon man: CRO. This is no longer a politically correct term, as scientists now believe the skeletons which were found in this region, and so named, are sufficiently like we HOMO SAPIENS to be called EMH, Early Modern Human.

21. '60s quartet member: MAMA. And the biggest of them all MAMA CASS.

22. Times for cool heads: CRISES. Yes, they prevailed when my computer was fighting me earlier.

23. 6 7/8, e.g.: HAT SIZE. I wear a 7 ½ which would be okay except I am pretty short. Of course some of us will speculate on body correlations, but that cannot be helped. I am sure there are research volunteers.

25. __ Age: IRON. I could not think of any other four letter ages, ICE, STONE, BRONZE?

31. Latin Quarter site: PARIS. This area on the left bank of the SEINE got its name not from any Hispanic influence, but because it is the educational center of Paris where reading, understanding Latin was important.

34. Soup vegetable: LEEK. A cousin of the onion and garlic.

35. "X-ing" one: PED. Pedestrian crossing, a cross walk. Jaywalking is taken very seriously in parts of the country, as a result drivers must brake to allow people to cross if they are in a designated area. Muhammed Ali almost ran me down in his Rolls while I was at LAX.

36. Space-saving abbr.: ET AL. My law use of the week. When you sue a bunch of people, you have to list all of them in the initial complaint. The part with the names is the caption. Once the original is filed, e.g., Lemonade vs. Dennis, Windhover, Barry G., Jeannie, Sallie and Dodo, the later pleadings will all be Lemonade vs. Dennis et al.

37. Seriously impairs: MAIMS. Yes, maiming is a specific crime, defined as injure, disable, or disfigure, usually by depriving of the use of a limb or other part of the body.

39. Loud, ringing sound: BONG. Am I the only one who thought of Michael Phelps?

40. Barnyard male: TOM. Tom Turkey? Tom Cat?

41. Lofgren of the E Street Band: NILS. He has played his GUITAR with Springsteen and Neil Young among others.

42. Flooded field: PADDY. Rice can be grown on dry land, but most of it is done underwater, in paddies.

47. Sailing, say: ASEA.

48. Alluring tops: HALTERS. Is this what you thought of for this style TOP.

52. Sign with an arrow: ONE WAY. I love this clue, so simple, but very visual.

55. Like falling off a log: EASY. A simile that always puzzled me as a child, because it is hard to get on a log.

56. Snap: PIC. Does anyone call them snaps anymore?

57. Alp-Öhi's granddaughter in an 1880 novel: HEIDI. Never read the book, but I have a close friend with the name.

60. Dum-dum: MORON. You may not know this, but this was a valid psychology term to describe mild retardation, but obviously, it has fallen out of favor. But you can still take the TEST .

Well another year in the record books, and my first as an organized contributor, I want to thank C.C., Rich, all the great constructors and all of you who have been here and who comment regularly or once in a while. Happy and wonderful new year for all and special wishes to those who need them.

Dec 30, 2010

Theme: 1A. Squish: MASHed up city names. The middle city name uses parts of the end of the first city name and the beginning of the last city name without adding any extra letters. Of all the cities presented, Pierre, SD and Annapolis, MD, and Concord NH are the only ones that are state capitals.

What a puzzle. I can't imagine what it must have taken to get all four theme entries to all be 13 letters each with overlapping names, and then fit them symmetrically into a grid with eight other non-theme answers having 9 to 10 letters in them, and 6 of them crossing 3 theme entries each.

I needed the short ones today just to get enough traction to get started. The crossing of Narz and Lai was just a guess, and the NW and SE corners did not come easily. Lots of music again today.

ACROSS:

5. Flintstone word: DABBA. Yabba dabba doo. Song written and performed by Hoagy Carmichael on the show.

10. Bairn, e.g.: SCOT. Scottish for baby.

14. Pick of the litter?: ALPO. (Dog food) Trademark applied for by Alpo circa 1985: IT'S THE PICK OF VETERINARIANS AND THE PICK OF THE LITTER

31. My __, Vietnam: LAI. The mass murder conducted by a unit of the U.S. Army on March 16, 1968 of 347–504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam, all of whom were civilians and a majority of whom were women, children (including babies) and elderly people. While 26 U.S. soldiers were initially charged with criminal offenses for their actions at My Lai, only William Calley was convicted. He served only three years of an original life sentence, spent on house arrest.

36. K-12: EL-HI. Elementary - High School.

38. It may be precious: METAL.

39. Percolate: OOZE. I don't usually think of upwards percolation, but it does happen, and can cause sinkholes.

43. Like some outlet mall mdse.: IRR. Irregular.

44. Quite a long time: EON.

45. Announcer Hall: EDD. Replaced Ed McMahon on the Tonight Show after Johnny Carson retired and Jay Leno took over.

46. Alberta natives: CREES.

48. Anesthesiologists' work sites, briefly: ORS. Had to wait to see whether it would be ERs.

51. Neapolitan song starter: O SOLE. Mio.

58. Soldier who has completed most of his tour of duty: SHORT TIMER. Or an employee who has given two week's notice. Just wishful thinking these days.

21. Pianist Templeton: ALEC. Composer, satirist, popularizer of classical music with a jazz feel. Also blind. Died in 1963, and yet there's a Youtube clip...

25. '70s "Concentration" host Jack: NARZ. Former daytime game show host. Needed all perps for this.

26. Ocean phenomenon: TIDE. From Old English tid, a marking unit of time, in the sense of high water time. To "tide you over" is the sense of "to carry, as the tide does". Also tidings, as news, carried on the tide.

28. Lover boy: ROMEO. Always with the male bias. Why isn't there a term for a lover girl called Juliet?

30. Stout hero Nero: WOLFE. Rex Stout, but as played by Robert Conrad, also stout in stature.

32. Start of a conclusion: THEREFORE. Good play on words for the clue.

33. Anabaptist denomination: MENNONITE. All I got out of researching this was they believed in baptizing adults, not babies, then I lost interest.

42. Blue Moon of '60s-'70s baseball: ODOM. Apparently was round-faced as a child, he got the nickname in grade school from a friend, Joe Morris.

47. Swashbuckler Flynn: ERROL. I can never remember if this is ERROL or EROLL.

49. __ candle: ROMAN. Fireworks, because scented doesn't fit.

50. Silver fish: SMELT. I remember these. Three scoopfuls with a net to fill a wash bucket, 10 minutes tops. Two hours driving round trip. Hours and hours cleaning and bagging to freeze. Pan-fried in oil with flour, salt, and pepper. They were good, but I was kind of glad the run only happened once per year.

Dec 29, 2010

Theme: After our discussion on themes yesterday, and despite other temptations, Eye-yi-yi, I'll just go with the unifier, EYE OPENER. For the asterisked clues, the first word of a common two-word answer can precede the word "EYE," yielding a totally different type of two-word phrase. Lots of times these are RIB TICKLERS, but today they're pretty straight forward.

17A. *Unquestioning devotion : BLIND FAITH. Belief in something, in the absence of evidence, or even disregarding contrary evidence. Don't get me started. BLIND EYE: What the devotee turns to the imperfections of the object of his devotion.

63A. *Knee-slapper : RIB TICKLER. An amusing joke or story that gets your ribs moving with a series of tee-hees. RIB EYE: A boneless, well-marbled steak, cut from the top of a standing rib roast. Cf. 23 D!

10D. *Pitchers and tumblers : GLASS WARE. The clue defines them very well. Vessels made of glass, suitable for transporting libations to and from the table, and thence to the lips. GLASS EYE. A non-functional ocular prosthesis: an artificial EYE made of GLASS, the best material for this application. Sammy Davis Jr. had one. Since I'm an EYE GLASS WEARER, I was tempted to go with the childhood taunt "FOUR EYES" for the theme, but, alas, "EYE" only shows up once - in the unifier.

34D. *Like treatment for visiting dignitaries : RED CARPET. It is literally rolled out for heads of state, and at gala celebrity events. Less formally, it indicates giving someone an unusually high level of hospitality. RED EYE: An overnight flight from point A to point B, implying discomfort and lack of sleep, hence the RED EYES. Probably not the usual means of transportation for someone about to walk the RED CARPET.

And, of course, the unifier, 38 A. A 5- or 40-Down ... or what the start of each answer to a starred clue can be : EYE OPENER. This has a few different meanings. The first is a startling revelation that gets one to see something in a new and unanticipated way. (Those with unquestioning devotion are immune.) The second is an alcoholic drink consumed early in the day, presumable to get one up and at 'em. Third, the stimulants in 5 and 40D. But, here, it also uses a common cross-word trope to cleverly indicate that the beginning of each theme answer can precede "EYE."

40D. Smoker's stimulant : NICOTINE. Another plant alkaloid, found in the nightshade family, and another clecho! It is what causes tobacco addiction.

Hi gang, It's JazzBumpa, with a tumbler of ginger ale at my elbow. Glenkinchie will come a little later. I don't recognize Gary Cee's byline. This puzzle was a lot of fun, and seemed pretty fresh to me, despite a few common entries. I've been anticipating AGLET for a long time, but don't recall seeing it in a puzzle before. The pinwheel theme answer arrangement is uncommon, as is placing the unifier in the center of the grid intersecting other theme answers.

Across:1. Sound return : ECHO. I was thinking of investment returns. Now I have my eye open for clechoes!

5. Suspension bridge support : CABLE. Here is an example I get to drive across going to and from visiting my mother.

10. Obtain forcibly : GRAB

14. Miller, for one : BEER. I thought it would be a teller of a Canterbury Tale. But the miller was drunk, so it kind of fits.

21. "When the smog clears in California, UCLA," e.g. : PUN. Sheesh. I read right through this and didn't get it.

22. Hitchcock title : SIR. Good night! I didn't know that. Nice misdirection for the director.

23. Dice-rolling game : YAHTZEE. I haven't played this game in years, and don't recall liking it very much.

26. The King or Prince : POP STAR. A royally clever clue. I think we had Jacko, the King of Pop not too long ago. Prince is the artist formerly known as "The artist Formerly known As Prince," which makes him the once and future Prince, I suppose. Never was a big fan of either. Feel free to provide links in comments.

29. Repugnant reaction : UGH. Not now. I just took a sip of the Glenkinchie!

30. Pound sounds : YIPS. Rhyme time for puppy noises.

32. Treatment plant input : SEWAGE. Now -- UGH!

33. Tie up, in a way : MOOR. I have no idea why this caused me a problem. Maybe our boaters can explain the origin if this word.

35. Home of Duke U. : N CAR. The Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill region of North Carolina, a beautiful part of the world with a lot of traffic. Note Abrv. n Cl. & Ans.

72. Pringles-like Lay's product : STAX. I really cannot understand what justifies the existence of the Pringle, let alone a competitive product from a company that makes real chips.

Down

1. Flow back : EBB. Like the tide.

2. Place to see Bugs? : CEL. Gary got me here. A CEL is a transparent sheet that animation figures are drawn on. CEL is derived from celluloid, a plastic made from cellulose. Today, the CEL is a relic, due to CGI.

3. Dwarfs' song : HEIGH-HO. Spelling this was a guess. Disney stopped using CELS in 1990, but this was long before.

4. Self-contradictory afterthought : OR NOT. I'm never sure if I should say this, OR NOT.

31. Flavor : SAPOR. I think we've been disconcerted in the past by SAPID. This looks like the root of all SAPIDITY. SAPOR is the quality of a substance to produce flavor. A hungry insomniac might want a saporific soporific to get DOZY.

39. Bigfoot cousin : YETI. A very distant cousin, since bigfoot is from North America, and the Yeti lives in the Himalayas. Though sometimes he can be found in a CEL with Bugs.

This seems like a bono fide Tuesday level puzzle for a change. I thought it was cute having ARREARS(21A) under BALANCE DUE(17A). Also, the SAY "BOO!"(29A) in front of SCOOBY DOO(30A). Scooby is a real 'fraidy cat, for a dog.

Well, better set to work; now that the wind has died down, there will be more shoveling to do. Plus, I want to find out what twinight is!

Across

1. Six-pack muscles : ABs

4. Gets to fit : ADAPTS

10. Farm country mail rtes. : RFDs. Rural Free Delivery.

14. Prefix with light or night : TWI. It seems a few of you already know TWInight. Baseball – adjective. Pertaining to or noting a doubleheader in which the first game begins late in the afternoon and the second in the evening under lights.

15. Cap'n Crunch, e.g. : CEREAL

16. Skin care brand : OLAY. That would be OIL of OLAY. 35D. Word with pan or paint : OIL

19. Rock group : BAND

20. Popular tattoo spot : ANKLE

21. Amount of money that should have been paid : ARREARS

23. "Divine Secrets of the __ Sisterhood" : YAYA. I understand it is a good film. I haven't seen it. It is based on a novel written by Rebecca Wells.

38. Supporter of Boris Godunov, say : TSARIST. Boris Godunov is a Russian opera based on a real ruler whose career began at the court of Ivan the Terrible. Boris Badenov is a fictional character and much more well known.

41. French article : LES

42. Reindeer herder : LAPP

46. Beethoven's Third : EROICA. Third what? 3rd symphony in E flat major (Op. 55), and we've seen it a lot lately.

10. Millinery accessory : HAT PIN. Centuries ago, many of the hats that were worn by European women came from the Italian city of Milan. A person who lives in Milan is a Milaner, and traders who sold hats made in Milan came to be known as Milaners too. Gradually, this word became milliner, and women’s hats are still called millinery.

Dec 24, 2010

Theme: Y me? - The letter Y is added to the start of the first word of each common phrase to create a new phrase which is quite punny. A very simple theme (add a “Y”) executed to entertain. This is only our second puzzle from Mr. Berniker, who brought us the What’s in a Name Puzzle (WOODY, ROCKY and SANDY) back in April, though this emergency room physician has had a number of NYT and other puzzles published, the theme is simple and clean.

17A. Those who outwit safecrackers?: YEGG BEATERS. The lazy man’s egg product, meets a safecracker, better known as a YEGG. YEGG has been in detective fiction from the early 1900’s, but no one is quite sure where it came from.

26A. 1945 view for Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin?: YALTA VISTA. YALTA was the site of the second of three wartime conferences between the leaders of Great Britain, Russia and the US. Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, were present, and the meeting took place on the black sea because the powerful dictator Stalin was afraid to fly. ALTA VISTA was one of the very early search engines for the world wide web, which like LYCOS, faded away under the Google onslaught.

39A. Chronologists?: YEAR SPECIALISTS. Chronology is the study of the sequence of events, and I bet you all know what an Ear Specialist is.

50A. Core of the dark side?: YIN ESSENCE. I really like this multi level clue, as it teases us with Star Wars like reference to the dark side, while literally meaning just dark. We recently discussed YIN being the shadowy side and YANG being the bright side, and of course, the essence of something is its core.

60A. Paradise brewing aid?: YEAST OF EDEN. Okay, I cannot help it, these puzzles just seem to hone in on me and my family, especially now that they both are beer maestros, with yeast the key to fermenting combined with the John Steinbeck novel East of Eden (which was made into a motion picture with James Dean) transformed into some biblical yeast to make great beer. Since beer predates wine, I guess it all makes good sense. When CAIN was exiled, it was to the east of Eden, to the land of Nod, which I mention since the book is sort of a retelling of that story. It is rumored a remake of the movie is in the works.

Lemonade here, and I enjoyed the cluing, lots of literary references with some deception and wit, for example:

33A. Bucks: BREAD. As the old joke goes, “What is a buccaneer? A really high price for corn.”

11. Status follower: QUO. This is an Anglicization of the Latin STATU QUO, which the state in which.

14. Princess Toadstool's rescuer: MARIO. Which was played on 65D. Old console using Game Paks: NES. My boys came along just in time for me to learn all about those wacky brothers Mario and Luigi.

19. "__ Believer": I'M A. I am sure most remember this SONG but for my fellow Connecticut followers, I remind everyone Peter Tork is the son of a UConn professor (Nee Thorkelson) and Peter now lives in Storrs.

20. Artist Matisse: HENRI. He was featured in a recent puzzle, and was a master of color and a friend and rival of Picasso.

21. Regarding: AS PER. Okay, also used by lawyers but I do not want to overdo.

29. Beef: RED MEAT. I quoted Clara Peller last week, remember?

32. Really riles: IRES. A real crossword word.

34. See 51-Down: IKE. And, 51D. With 34-Across, '50s slogan: I LIKE. My earliest memory was when Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart came to my small home town, campaigning for Adlai Stevenson, and my father met them at the train station and took them to meet the mayor etc.

35. Zap with a weapon: TASE. And thisVIDEO was a proud University of Florida moment.

45. Chimú conquerors: INCAS. Last week I had the Aztecs now the Incas and the CHIMU .

46. Light bites: NIPS. Why many people do not like little dogs, who are yippy and bite.

48. Botanical cavity: ALVEOLA. We also had this as the cavity in the lungs, for example, but it is the same in Botany and Zoology.

54. Miss Pym's creator: TEY. How timely, as Fermatprime brought her up Wednesday; Elizabeth MacIntosh produced only ten or twelve books under various pseudonyms, but did line into her 50s, and is said to have influenced all the great cozy writers like Agatha Christie. Martha Grimes recently paid tribute to her The Daughter of Time in two Inspector Jury novels.

55. Woman in a "Paint Your Wagon" song: ELISA. I love the version sung by CLINT EASTWOOD ; where is our author Elissa?

59. Do some bartending: MIX. Yes, a bar, that is what my oldest and my nephew want to open in Buffalo.

66. Squeeze (out): EKE. The second of this puzzles tired but needed crosswordese.

67. Ranch wanderer: STRAY. Why do I picture a loose crouton trying to escape my fork? kinda goes with 64D. Forest ranger?: ELK. Well, luckily there are not many three lettered animals in the forest.

68. Boosted: STOLE. This comes from the organized shoplifters, who used a booster box, a device with a false bottom, which would be placed on top of merchandise, which would then get taken out. The store detective never saw the perp touch the merchandise.

69. Neighbor of Homer: NED. Not the author, but the Simpson, and the religious Mr. Flanders.

70. Newbery Medal winner for "Island of the Blue Dolphins": ODELL. Never heard of the BOOK or Mr. O’Dell. Whew, we are thru the acrosses.

Down:

1. Etiquette guru Vanderbilt: AMY. With a name like Vanderbilt (you all should tour the home in Newport, R.I.) who would not read this TOME .

4. [I give up]: SIGH. Come on, no time to quit now, we are going to finish.

5. Start of a classic question: TO BE. Or not to be, that is the question; in my all boys high school, I played Gertrude in our production of Hamlet; the rest were too insecure.

6. Claw: TEAR AT. This too is timely, if you have ever seen a rabid group of children and their presents on Christmas morning.

7. Up to: UNTIL. The punch line, “Up to now, everything was okay.” The joke?

8. Anticipated: DUE.

9. Boston sports legend: ORR. Another New England reference.

10. Back up anew: RESAVE.

11. Marx forte: QUIPS. Karl? Groucho? Both?

12. Like certain expectations: UNMET. Life unfulfilled desires, also apt at Christmas as we see bonuses dwindling, presents shrinking…

13. "Pal Joey" author: O'HARA. Another author and a contemporary of John Steinbeck. When Steinbeck won the Pulitzer prize O’Hara sent him a telegram saying, he could only think of one other author who deserved the prize. O’Hara was great with dialogue, I still read his books.

18. "A Day Without Rain" musician: ENYA. Our new age queen is back.

22. __ Chapel: SISTINE. Another ceiling reference?

23. Fast food chain known for roast beef: ARBY'S. One of many food chains that began in Ohio, the name is not RB for Roast Beef, but RB for Raffel Brothers, the founders. They were the first chain to ban smoking in their facilities.

24. First multiracial coed college in the South: BEREA. The history of this COLLEGE is amazing, but I will leave the details to our own Windhover.

25. "Be __ ...": A DEAR. And get me a beer while you are up. Or take out the garbage.

27. Kind of torch: TIKI. Very big in south Florida.

28. Gazetteer figure: AREA. Gazetteer is an atlas including information like population and area.

30. Quantico inhabitants: MARINES. A shout out to our soon to be traveling and resting Dennis.